Twenty years after being taken by the town of North Reading via eminent domain, Hillview CC continues to thrive

By Bob Albright with Photos by David Colt

Walter O’Rourke admits they do not quite blanket the slope overlooking the first tee at Hillview CC like they did during the peak of the golf boom in 1999.

“You used to not even be able to find a seat out there on a Sunday,” the long-time Hillview starter recalled of the overflow horde of golfers who would arrive each weekend with the morning dew. 

“It was amazing. I would be telling people that it was a two-hour wait and they would reply, ‘that’s fine’.”

While it does not often back up like that anymore (where does it?), the popular public course, which sits on top of old Red Hill in North Reading, remains relatively impervious to any reported lag in the golf economy for a couple of good reasons:  affordability combined with a challenging, yet forgiving, layout.

“I think we are a very player-friendly course,” says head pro Chris Carter, who estimates that the club did some 50,000 starts and 34,000 18-hole rounds last year. “I think because of that we don’t lose a lot of rounds to other courses.”

Founded as a private nine-hole course back in the late 20s, the club was originally called Old Reading Country Club with today’s back nine serving as the original nine. Later it became Red Hill Country Club, before being re-named Hillview CC in 1956. In 1988 with Hillview entangled with a developer and saddled with some financial difficulties, the club’s fortunes took a definite turn for the better. Citing the large aquifer that runs under much of the sprawling course which feeds many of the town’s wells, North Reading took the property by eminent domain.

George Stack, who chairs the seven-person Hillview Commission which oversees the club, remembers the process as being fairly lively – Hillview had better than 300 members at the time -- but also noted that the town’s claim to the property was legitimate.

“We couldn’t take it for open space, recreation, or because it was going to be developed,” Stack pointed out. “The aquifer was the key.  You had to have a pretty hardcore reason for doing it and we had that. It was pretty contentious. It went on for about sixth months.”

It is safe to say that Hillview has flourished ever since. A brand new pro shop was built in 1992 and a good portion of the course’s greens have been replaced and enlarged, along with major improvements to the track’s drainage. Stack says the key has not necessarily been the commission, but its ability to often stay out of the way and find the right people to run the show.

?Hillview CC’s sprawling first hole gives golfers an immediate opportunity to grab their drivers.

To run the golf course the commission enlisted Golf Facilities Management Incorporated (GFMI) which is jointly run by Carter and Gannon GC superintendent Steve Murphy.  Burt Page, a veteran of both the golf and hotel industry, took over Hillview’s clubhouse and large function hall.

“It has turned out well because we have the right guys running it,” Stack said of the transition which did not use any taxpayer money.  “We hit pay dirt with both Burt at the country club and with CMGI at the golf course. Steve Murphy came in with a plan right down to the pesticides we should use and we’ve pretty much followed that the whole way.”

In the pro shop, Lynn’s Carter became one of the youngest head professionals in the area as he took the reins at the tender age of 22.

Carter lists Hillview’s longest hole – the 539-yard par-5 eighth hole – as his favorite.

“It really gives you a lot of different options and forces you to make some decisions,” he says. “With a good drive you can be set up to go for a large and receptive green with your second shot, but it’s all about position and a lot of people will want to lay up. Then you have the fountain behind the green that you’re shooting at. It’s just a real nice hole.”

Although the eighth hole is his favorite, Carter points to the club’s five varied, and testy, par-3s as Hillview’s trademark.

“They’re what really make the course,” he says. “They’re all so different. You take 16 (which measures 236 yards from the back tees) for example. That used to be a par-4 and is really a tough hole. Depending on the wind, most people are going to be hitting a driver and you’ve got a real small landing area.”

It is safe to say that Hillview’s 191-yard (back tees) par-3 ninth, which requires a lengthy tee shot right over the course’s main pond, has swallowed up a lot of potentially good nine-hole rounds – not to mention golf balls -- over the years.

“Some have called that one of the toughest finishing holes around,” Carter adds. “It can really make or break you.”

Five different high schools call Hillview’s rolling fairways home. North Reading, Austin Prep and Northeast Regional all play there in the fall, while both Austin Prep and Phillips Andover tee it up in North Reading in the spring. Several other schools, including Andover High, practice there on a regular basis. Even MIT has called Hillview home in recent years.

“The town and the commission do so much for that type of stuff,” says Carter. “It’s a shame when you see some of these schools that have two or three private clubs in their own town and they can’t even get on there to practice.”

A popular spot for pro-ams over the years, the rolling course has seen its fair share of low rounds. Bob Menne, who won the 1974 Kemper Open in a playoff, has one of the lowest with a 64, but no one has been able to top former Boston Bruin standout Bill Ezinicki, who went seriously low one summer afternoon in 1960 with a 8-under-par 61.  Carter’s fellow captain at Bryant University, Joe Nagel, has won several club championships and former Lynnfield High standout, Mason Hickman, has won the last two.  Former Austin Prep and William & Mary College star Nicole Rheaume, who worked several years at the course, is one of the better female players the club has produced in recent years, while Ginny Slagel has won the last two women’s league championships.

With weekday specials like $14 for nine holes, Hillview has always been a very popular course among the senior set as well.

“This course is really friendly to the average golfer, but when we used to have a lot of pro-ams here there were not a lot of low scores either,” says O’Rourke. “I think it has got something for everybody.”

Perhaps for that very reason golfers will continue to blanket the slope off the first tee and wait patiently for their chance to play the course which sits on top of the hill in North Reading.